


Shed Viper

by heartratemonitor



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Aaravos is forcibly turned human, Alien Cultural Differences, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Imprisonment, M/M, Power Exchange, Rape/Non-con Elements, Suicidal Thoughts, nonhuman behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:53:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22155082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartratemonitor/pseuds/heartratemonitor
Summary: Aaravos is declawed. Viren takes what is left of him.
Relationships: Aaravos/Viren (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 78





	Shed Viper

They leave a black gash of death across Xadia. It is impartial in its pickings. King and thief alike rot by their hands, for elves, in all their gloating, still have kings and thieves. Those still rise by their willingness to take, and die by it. Aaravos wants further, and in the end, like man, his want allows leeway for negligence.

Viren is close to outliving his usefulness, and it is Claudia who suggests declawing the overgrown cat. It is not an elegant solution; the loss of their co-conspirator leaves room for weakness with one less competent magician in their employ. His daughter, skilled as she is, can only compensate so much. On the other hand, Viren is close to the end life of his service, and once Claudia follows, there is no room for either of them at his hand. It is the easiest decision to make, but the most difficult to follow through.

Their exploits leave alliances fractured. The bulk of the human kingdoms, to no surprise, are reluctant to side with elves. Trade with Sunfires begin in Duren, with the bastard sons of Katolis laying in wait until Ezran chooses to reclaim his birthright from Viren’s grasp. Whenever the time comes. The rest of humanity, however, has no inkling of what transpired during their travels, and Aanya, wayward child regent, is reduced to black, traitorous sheep.

It is not enough. Viren knows it is not enough, and his vice grip will grow slack with wounds, but he still has his relics, and he still has man’s innate distrust of the unknown. He does not trust Aaravos as much as he can throw him, and throw him he can’t. He does not trust Aaravos at all, though he’s touched him and laid beneath him.

Claudia’s plan is inelegant. They must try anyway.

You need to get a man plastered for surgery. There’s a species of fruit that functions as a depressant for elves but is functionally juice for humans. There’s a species of bug that knocks elves to sleep, but doesn’t humans. There’s likely vice versa too, but this is not the point of the exercise. There’s knives and his usual coins. Aaravos helps himself to his glass without being offered, because Aaravos helps himself to anything he likes or finds amusing, asking be damned. Viren drinks too, because he is the lure. The concoction smells of oranges and overripe grapes, with a hint of violet. 

He needs to make this fast. There’s a hand at his neck, and a mouth over his own. Aaravos is so human, for all his markings, and just as weak to the same failings. Possessive and power drunk, and equally exploitable. Viren thinks of ancient man, worshiping gods to beg for their best behavior. You’d expect a god to be more like a parent; to know more and do better than you, to do better for you.

Viren’s being a hypocrite. Viren’s being a hypocrite, and Aaravos necks at him with all his teeth. He slumps, slack mouth into Viren’s arms, moments later, because Claudia is more skilled than her father. He readies the spell. It does not work as intended.

Maybe Startouch elves are differently built. He needed a mirror to contain him when a coin would have suited fine. Do years add mass to the soul? Do souls have mass? Viren doesn’t know, but he never cared to know before. What matters is that spells function as intended, and while Aaravos slumps over dead like his prior marks, the coin does not house his soul.

Instead, it drains him like a sponge is washed clean of grime, slowly and gradually, with increasing dilutions of water. The stars blink out and die in his skin, and the dark of night siphons its way into the metal, darker and darker until what is left no longer shines. His horns fall away from him like armor unbuckled. His ears take human shape. He grows pinkies. 

Viren puts a hand to his mouth. It does not stop the trembling. The coin is a small galaxy in his palm, and Aaravos is a human man. When the initial shell shock fades, he examines the body closer. His skin is dark, but cold; closer to Harrow’s neutrals than the flush of earth red from the Sunfires. Even in human trappings, he does not entirely convince; the layer of flesh too soft and perfectly arranged to pass as mortal. His hair is white- a white kissed with a tint of yellow, unlike the drained white of dying humans or dark magic practitioners.

He is human, now, that much is true. He is no human Viren has ever seen. That is also true. Really, it’s safer to kill him now, but this spell is new and strange. He is a curiosity, like the egg. Viren’s curiosity cost him multitudes, and he ought to know better, but humans rarely learn when thinking their luck will be better next time will do.

He takes the horns, as a gift for his daughter- the only one he has left in the world. He locks the human away.

* * *

  
  


The dungeons are cold and rank. Viren’s private cells have better ventilation, and are useful for housing prisoners who shouldn’t be prisoners on record. He straps Aaravos to the wrist bindings, nearly tempted to wait for hours so that he is the first thing the man sees when he wakes. No mistakes, this time. He cannot afford to repeat them.

In the evening there’s a gap in his duties before bed to allow a visit. Aaravos is… awake? Is he awake? His eyes are open, but they are fixed at an ordinary point in the wall, as uninteresting as the rest of the cobbles. He does not greet Viren or turn his head to acknowledge his presence. He’s shaking in endless, minute convulsions, like a coatless human beggar in the middle of a rainstorm. If he were such a person, death would surely follow.

Viren kneels to his level and strikes him across the face. Aaravos does not acknowledge him. It’s insulting.

“Do you not understand the position you’re in?” Viren begins, because he’s done this before. Elves will act better than humans, but despite the anatomical differences and misalignment of values, they’re still motivated by the same things. Family. Fear. Love. Allegiances.

Aaravos says nothing. He thinks of Runaan, and his irritating mantra. The coin trick only works once, and as stupid as it sounds, Viren wants to keep this one, if only for recompense. Equivalent exchange, more or less. He’ll only take the same as what Aaravos has taken, which is plenty.

He slaps him again, and this time the elf-now-human looks at him in the eyes- neutral, near dead. His eyes are lavender, like the flower. No human looks like that. Viren holds his throat, and his eyes close, white lashes shuddering.

“I could kill you right now,” he warns, fingers tightening.

“Why don’t you?” Aaravos asks, and it is so unlike all the other times he’s heard his voice. Small and mortal, though lacking in fear. Does he want to die? Surely he must. Force a god to live as man, and he’ll grow mad in a day. They’ll speak of man’s folly, but anyone would be driven to vice when offered nothing but dirt.

_ Make do with dirt,  _ says the god.

_ You first,  _ Viren thinks, but does not say.

“Because you’d like that,” he says instead, and squeezes his neck to punctuate. “You have no use left. Your only remaining purpose is to serve me.”

He did not consider that Aaravos could potentially be like Harrow’s older son, capable of fantastical casting even in human trappings. If he were, he would have done it by now, wouldn’t he? Would he need to bind his hands, if Viren chooses to bring him to his quarters? Fucking in here is not the most appealing of prospects. A bed would be better. Maybe some wine, too, to make his guest more compliant.

“It’s cold,” Aaravos says, and his voice is strange, like a falling bell in another room. “And hot. It’s everything. I can hear the organs inside me jostling around. I don’t understand how you can take it.”

“If you’re well behaved, I’ll give you a blanket,” Viren starts. Anything as leverage.

Aaravos does not reply. Viren opens the elf- the human’s mouth and leaves a finger there. His prisoner does not bite, but does not suck either. He’s doing the bare minimum to hold up a conversation. Viren slaps him again, to no effect.

“There’s lots of things worse than death,” Viren continues, irritation bubbling over. Aaravos shows neither fear nor anger. Either would have done fine. Either would have been plenty to sink claws into, plenty enough to use. “Would you like me to helpfully remind you?”

“If it pleases you,” he answers without inflection. 

Viren pauses.

“This is my only remaining purpose.”

There’s a heat in Viren’s gut that rises to his mouth and leaves malformed; a smile that is not a smile. A kiss that is not a kiss.  _ Declaw the ugly cat, _ Claudia had called it. There’s literature on this, in the text of ancient humans and proto-dark magic practitioners. Make a god a man and they’ll cry and wail and beg like the lowest of worms. Gods should be devoured. Gods should be skinned and eaten, and if their bodies are large enough, you should use them as houses. They receive their power by birthright and start with more than you, but that does not stop you from taking.

Power comes to anyone determined to climb the tree and harvest the fruit.

Aaravos does not kiss back, but acquiesces once Viren insists he does. This is recompense. He’s endured a lot for this bastard, including but not limited to mental manipulation and one bodily death, which his daughter had paid for. Surely the not-elf can tolerate a little manhandling as repayment. This form is just as easy on the eyes, and he owes Viren that much.

“You learn quickly,” Viren breathes, hands greedy and hot, roaming against the flawless plane of flesh, over every perfectly carved curve. Even dressed in mortal skin and sweat and cold, it’s hard to see him as a person. His skin is too soft; like it has never met a day of labor or exposure to the elements. He thinks of alabaster and marble, and then obsidian surgical knives, to harvest rare parts from magical beasts of burden. 

He imagines cutting him open and holding his heart in his palm. Would it look like a mortal’s? Would it squirm like one?

Viren looks down. Aaravos has grown half-hard under his relentless palms. His dethroned god breathes in air like it’s going out of style, eyes squeezed shut. Viren takes him by his want and pumps, picturing his heart and entrails pinned and dissected to its essential parts, sorted by magical usefulness. Aaravos writhes, and makes hurt, wounded sounds with every exacting touch.

Skin the god. Sort its parts. Hunters don’t waste resources. Claudia would hate him, Viren thinks, because she’s beautiful and better than he ever was and will ever be. Rape is still rape. Harrow would hate him too, but Harrow’s hated him long before the Moonshadows showed up on their doorstep, so it doesn’t matter anyway.

He’ll wait another day for penetrative sex. Dungeons are grimy places to fuck. 

“Call me by my title,” Viren demands.

Kings and thieves. Gods and mortals. Anything and anyone counts as fair game as long as you are ruthless and willing.

“My lord,” Aaravos chokes out, with none of the smugness and pretense from before. “My king.”

Viren kisses him, and the man releases on his palm. He’s true to his word and brings blankets into the cells, later that night, hung over his prisoner’s shoulders, though he doesn’t trust him enough to unshackle him. Aaravos does not ask for food or water, nor mercy or death. Over the following days, he simply accepts whatever he is given, takes what Viren metes out, and allows himself to be used.

It is almost anticlimactic, though preferable to more difficulty. By the end of the week Viren has servants haul a mattress and basic necessities in the cell. If they have concerns about his strange prisoner, they voice none of it, and neither does Aaravos. He is quiet throughout the whole affair, though his eyes are sharp and ever watchful. 

As a test, Viren brings five Crownguards down to the cell, under the pretense of breaking down a political prisoner to confess. They are undisciplined and rowdy, and indiscriminate when it comes to the art of subduing. They are also padding, should unshackling Aaravos prove disastrous. Waiting in the upper floors is nerve wracking torment, though they return an hour later, smug, satiated, and noticeably not in pieces.

“All yours, your majesty,” the ringleader says with a grin. “Who is that guy anyway? Real pretty. He royalty from somewhere? Felt like a fella who never fought a day in his life.”

Viren decides to have them all killed, much later. Discreetly, of course. Not for any particular reason, but it rankles him that they got to test drive his belongings first and leave unscathed. He comes downstairs with a pail of water, perfumed soaps, and cleaning cloths. Aaravos is bent over at the side of the bed, legs caked with dried trails of blood and spend. His left ankle is in a new shackle, to prevent him from leaving, and the skin of his wrists are raw and red. He hasn’t bothered to move himself to a more dignified position.

“Do you want to die?” Viren asks, gentle and wracked with a twinge of bothersome pity. He does not know where it came from.

“If it pleases you, my lord,” he answers mechanically.

Humans are weak and riddled with security flaws. Viren’s weakness is that he is lonely and loved only by his daughter, and craves more when he should settle for respect and fear. He knows that much about himself, to safeguard others from cracking it. A quick ticket to love is to patch up someone after they are broken, and do it so tenderly that they forget that you are the one who broke them in the first place. He’s done this countless times, to his son.

Aaravos is smarter than Soren. He allows Viren’s hands, as he always has since the beginning of their arrangement. If he is as weak as a human, then he is just as vain, and therefore would want the same, predictable things- to be clean, to be safe, to be taken care of.

_ What if he doesn’t want those things? _ A voice asks. It’s a dangerous thought. He’s wearing human skin, but if he doesn’t have human wants, Viren can’t even begin to relate to such a thing. Can’t even start to fathom it.

“Would you like anything from me? Within reason, of course. You’re due for a reward for good behavior this week.”

Viren cleans his body, and Aaravos allows it. He’s done this before to Harrow, when the man was younger, recently widowed from his first wife, and in the throes of a fever. It’s different this time. Maybe not that different, though. Slot circumstances and personalities, but mortals still crave the same things.

“I don’t want anything,” Aaravos says, and Viren is momentarily terrified.

It’s a suit. A human suit. He’s wearing a human suit now, and before that he wore an elf suit. It’s a beautiful coat of dark, flawless skin, a soft face, and a halo of hair, but is there even anything under the coat that Viren can understand? Can connect with on a tangible level? Fear and anger, those are easy. Even love, or attachment. Anything to hold on to. Anything solid.

“Surely you must want something,” Viren persists, as much for himself as for his prisoner. “There will be nothing to do here but pace, eat, sleep, and fuck me. Choose. I will provide.”

“Fiction novels,” Aaravos relents, and the request is so absurd that Viren almost wants to deny him outright. “Those are interesting. If it pleases you, of course.”

“Any preference on genre?” Viren asks, and restrains the urge to smack himself on the side of his face to confirm that this is really happening.

Curiosity. Better than nothing.

“No.”

“I’ll get some tomorrow, then.” There’s plenty of junk literature that the princes left over. Surely novel enough to please an ousted god. Should he add cheap erotica into the pile? There’s well kept pamphlets from Soren’s room, poorly hidden in between wedges of more difficult books. Ugly, bawdry romances for lonely women- garbage, really. Fire kindling sort of literature-

“Thank you.”

Once the towel bath is done, Viren cleans and bandages the raw marks on his wrists. Aaravos thanks him for this too. Every person has a security flaw, and Viren’s is his desperate need of love. Gratitude is not love, he reminds himself. Aaravos has no choices, and Viren has many. Aaravos has a new, worthless body that likely disorients and frightens him, and he is merely holding onto whatever he can hold onto, just like Viren is. None of this means anything. 

He’s too good at giving head. That doesn’t mean anything either, but it’s a good distraction.

Viren drops off the books in the morning. Busy work is unbecoming for a new king, so he makes a note to hire someone dependable to bring food down here to his guest. He thinks that this is a repeat of the egg, but Aaravos was just an elf before he reduced him to a man. There's no equivalence. There will be no wars in his name carried out in righteous vengeance.

He's a war trophy. That's all he is. He's no different from a fancy sword stolen from a foreign place that no one here knows how to wield. His only purpose is to be a decoration with minimal function.

The dungeon was dimly, before, But Viren has outfitted it with better lights. The human face Aaravos wears is unsettlingly young, on closer inspection. A touch older than his son's- potentially Kasef's age. He sits upright on the bed with a grace that is unnatural for someone newly awake, or worn down as thoroughly as he had been the night before. There is nothing on his face that betrays a line that would damn him. 

Viren hates it. He would take even bravado at this point.

"How are you feeling?" He asks instead, to lay down the line.

"Hot," Aaravos says distantly.

Viren presses a hand over his forehead.

"This is what we humans call a fever."

"It's… interesting, my lord," he replies, as though he were studying the migration patterns of birds rather than the violent machinations of the body that houses him.

Is that it then? Is this just another curiosity to him? Is pain and pleasure just different tastes in his mouth? Would dying as a mortal man be just as thrilling to him as making love?

Viren wants to beat him to an inch of his life.

"I brought you the books. Varied enough selection."

It's not a lie. It's a varied selection of garbage. Garbage can be incredibly varied. Dented armor. Rotten fruit. Broken furniture.

"I didn't expect you to get them, honestly," Aaravos murmurs, and Viren wonders if this is enough thread to make rope with, to hold onto.

"And why is that?" Viren asks, and his voice barely smothers his vice grip on the threads.

"You're wondering why I'm not angry, or afraid, or trying to leave, or anything else other than what I am now."

It doesn't answer his question, but it's a better answer than the one he asked for.

"Yes. Would you care to tell me?"

Viren's fingers graze his bare shoulder. Aaravos has not bothered with clothes since he's removed them. Practicality, he thinks. Humans would prioritize avoiding shame to being practical. Everything at him is screaming at the wrongness of it. He imagines the heart in his fist. It does not writhe like a mortal afraid of death. It does not pump blood at twice the pace when met with terror.

"Why should I be angry?" A rhetorical? Aaravos looks impassively at the hand on his shoulder, traveling upwards. "I tried to trick you, and I failed. Your retaliation should come as no surprise. I have no reason to be angry."

_ That's not how people work, _ a voice warns. It sounds like Soren.

"You were angry when Thunder imprisoned you," Viren counters, taking him by the chin so their eyes forcibly lock.

"This body will die in half a century, if that. It's a nonissue. I won't be here long."

It's convincing enough, but Aaravos is the type to lie out of a paper bag and sell you the scraps. This much has been established. Nothing here adds up to truths that are familiar. Truths Viren can hold onto and exploit. Even the lies are new, like tastes he doesn't have a name for. Like colors humans can't see.

"You should be angry," Viren warns, but he knows he's already made his mistake. "Would you like to be elucidated on all the terrible plights the human body is exposed to?"

"You bested me at my game. It is only fair. I don't think you humans grasp fairness. You're so indignant when you're caught red handed."

Viren strikes him with the staff. The force is enough to topple Aaravos onto the sheets, and Viren digs for his pocket knife; straddling him and pinning him to the bed with blade at his throat. The body beneath him does not stir nor struggle; dead weight without appropriate responses.

"You think you're better than me," Viren hisses, taking fistfuls of his beautiful hair and hacking at the pieces with his knife. None of this is hurting him.  _ None of this is hurting him. _ He wants him to hurt.

"That's not true," Aaravos says quietly. A hand touches Viren’s cheek.

None of this is right.

His eyes are not any different from before. Lavender, like the flower. No anger. No fear. No shame. No pride. Lavender tincture. Anxiety relief. Sleep aid. If you have a function with extended family, take a low dose to clock out for the day.

He was beautiful in the mirror. This is true. He's beautiful down here, and this is also true, though true and false are gray matter and flotsam to be used in equal measure to get what you want.

"Do you want to die?" Viren asks again, soft and gentle like how lovers fuck.

The chopped hair clings to Aaravos in clumps and tiny dustings. It's going to itch if they leave it here, but nothing a good wind spell can't fix. Reverse suction. Save the pieces for Claudia. She always finds uses for scraps, and makes gold from trash just like her father.

"I don't know," Aaravos replies. It is not quite fear, but uncertainty is something he can work with. Something easy. "I don't know if I want anything, anymore. There's no use wanting things when this is what I have to work with. It's almost… I don't know."

The human smiles. It's beautiful like watching the edge of a cliff is beautiful. It's beautiful like looking down a bridge is beautiful, compelled with the urge to jump. Viren watches, and for a moment does not know who is trapping who.

"I don't have to want anything. My long game is down the drain. I get to die. I'm free."

Viren puts his mouth on him. This is not the appropriate response for skin to skin contact with the closest thing to a star eating monster he has found, claws or no claws. None of this is appropriate. None of this is safe, magical hygiene practice.

Aaravos kisses back. Seems they have come to an agreement.

* * *

  
  


It’s a lie, of course. Aaravos is furious, in a distant sort of way, but that fury is bested by curiosity, which is further bested by the awful assault on his senses. He’s studied humans like a child would watch an ant hill on the way to more pressing engagements. To have the body of one is a different matter entirely.

It’s too hot. It’s too cold. There’s too much pain. Does every human feel everything so intensely? All the colors are brighter than he’s used to seeing; all the textures have their scratch and burn. It’s like fireworks inches from your face, ever present, never ceasing. Speaking to Viren takes up so much concentration. It’s been a week. It hasn’t stopped, but he’s mentally filed enough of the chaos to make some sense of it.

There’s time, too. Seconds are basically eternities. An hour stretches like a mile, to be walked by a man without legs. There’s so much pain. There’s hunger pain and tearing pain, and pain he can’t identify in his chest and his gut with no logical cause. He thinks it’s shame. That makes no sense. He’s only come to this conclusion because the pain coincides with Viren’s visits. 

It’s illogical. He has nothing to be ashamed of. This is the natural conclusion to a failed exploit. Both humans and elves take prisoners of war. Both take trophies, some with more frequency than others. If it is anticipated, he has no reason to feel anything.

He clocks out, for the most part. To be human comes with human responses, and human responses are illogical by nature. Sometimes his eyes water in their sessions, and he doesn’t understand why. He isn’t sad- he thinks. It doesn’t hurt enough to warrant crying. There’s pain that’s worse, like the five Crownguard who came downstairs. 

This pain is quiet. He’s assessing pain by volume. Fever pain. 2/10 intensity. Largely temperature and dull aches. Intercourse pain. Variable. 1/10 to 4/10 intensity. Comes with chest pain- anxiety? Speaking to Viren. 2/10 to 5/10 intensity. Illogical sort of pain. Human pain.

The leftover hair reaches his shoulders. Its texture is choppy and uneven. Viren had made an impromptu vacuum and fucked him after their little argument. If Aaravos were to hazard a guess, Viren is not the most well adjusted of men. He kept him instead of killed him, so that much is a given.

The books are interesting. He has a method to read them- three times per volume. Once for the blind read, twice because the story changes once you know what happens. A third to examine anticipated responses, and take note as to whether it differs from what he’s seen in personal experience.

Humans, as it turns out, are kinder in books.

By the start of the second week, a middle aged woman comes down twice a day to bring him food. Aaravos tries to make conversation, to be rebuffed on day one on day two. On day three, the servant apologizes to him.

“Why are you apologizing?” he asks. “You haven’t done anything to wrong me.”

She’s weeping into her kerchief. This isn’t an anticipated response either.

“I’m so sorry dear,” she sobs, eyes darting towards the chain on his leg. “I have orders not to talk to you.”

She’s weeping for him. The feeling is new. He pictures a blossom opening. He pictures rain drowning it and sweeping it away from the root.

“You don’t have to apologize,” he insists, and tries to smile. 

The woman runs.

In the evening Viren comes to complain about something that Aaravos does not care about. He mentions that Claudia has run tests on the samples they took. The body that he has now is roughly in his early twenties. Viren makes a passing comment about robbing cradles. Aaravos has found that it expends as little energy as possible to let Viren talk while he observes.

His chest tightens whenever the man reaches to touch him. This is the most consistent observation. Two, Viren thinks that his will is broken, and has put on the kid gloves. Does he like broken things? Broken things aren’t useful, but broken things are symbols of conquest, Aaravos reminds himself. Humans like broken things, as long as they still have a function, no matter how useless.

Is he broken? He’s changed, certainly. A different shape. Breaking something is definitely the simplest step to changing something. Aaravos does not hate it. He’d like a bigger place, certainly. More freedom. But he has no responsibilities anymore, and he has always wanted to die. A brief time of discomfort is a small price to pay.

Humans are shitty time keepers. Aaravos has no idea what time it is. 

“What are you thinking about?” Viren asks, because he finds the asinine little remarks about the books he’s read to be of particular interest. “Your comments on Oedipus where priceless, by the way.”

Viren is getting fonder of him. Viren is lonely, and his fondness has conditions. He’s one of those idiots who thinks he can tame wild animals and inevitably wake up one day to find his face mauled. Aaravos smiles and pictures his guts rearranged on the bed while his jailer tests the uneven fringes of his bad haircut.

“I think the fever is getting worse. I don’t know, though. I’m not sure.”

Ah. Concern. Viren is an idiot. Aaravos is charmed by it somehow, because humans are idiots and he’s one now, technically, so he just goes with it. He’s charmed in the same way the flower opened when the woman cried. He’s been prayed to, sure. But cried for? That’s different. Better, even. 

“Your temperature’s worse,” Viren agrees, and ushers him to lay on the bed.

Aaravos doesn’t know if sitting up or laying down even matters, but he follows along. 

“I need to bring you more water. Dehydration doesn’t help.” 

He’s pacing. It’s stupid. Viren has been raping him for a little over a week and now he’s decided that dehydration doesn’t help. Whatever lets him sleep at night.

“If it pleases you, my lord,” Aaravos says, because it’s the response that elicits the best outcomes.

Viren kisses the underside of his wrist. If he knew it wasn’t sound practice, Aaravos would have burst into laughter. It’s just so funny. It’s like his food bringer woman stabbing him in the chest and then crying afterwards for stabbing him in the chest. 

According to the human books, this is just a human thing.

He gets a jug of water by his bedside; fresher than the cups he got before. Viren bothered with a purification spell for this, and some medicinal herbs to be taken between meals. Viren doesn’t fuck him again until the fever clears. Aaravos does the little thank you song and dance.  _ Thank you _ and  _ if it pleases you _ and  _ my lord. _

Viren is an idiot. Viren’s been an idiot since the day they met. This shouldn’t be new. Somehow it always is new, though. Somehow it always surprises him, in between layers of new and familiar pain. If Aaravos is human, that means he’s an idiot too. 

Aaravos is fine with that. He’s allowed to die. Every time Viren touches him, he feels like he’s dying. He welcomes it, almost. It’s a death you can repeat. Humans can die as many times as they deem fit. That’s a talent restricted to their kind and their kind alone. He’s human now, so he’ll die plenty. Some deaths he can’t even predict; can’t even stop.

It’s wonderful, he thinks, and is frightened by his own evaluation. Is frightened that he is frightened.

The gate is closed. He can’t come back from this.


End file.
